Why People Settle Down: The 3-Step Settling Curve

I recently was privy to a conversation between a handful of women in their early- to mid-thirties. They were for the most part quite attractive and confident, and their careers were solid and their paychecks healthy. The conversation went something like this:

Girl 1: I’m someone who thought she’d always be single her entire life and never get married. But I had to take care of my aging mother when my father was in the hospital, and I realized someday that will be me and it might really be nice to have someone around to look after me when I’m like that.

Girl 2: I never thought I’d want to get married either. I’m still not sure if marriage is what I want, but as I get older I think more and more it’d be nice to have a companion.

Girl 1: Exactly. But I’d never settle! I’d only get married if someone was truly the right match for me.

Girl 3: You should never accept someone who isn’t the right match for you. The right person will come along sooner or later; you just have to have the patience to wait for him.

Girl 2: That’s a beautiful way to put it.

Girl 1: Totally right.

You may hear something like this and think, “For a group of smart, educated, professionally successful women, they sure don’t seem to be able to think or communicate about love in any way that doesn’t rely on romcom tropes and tired clichés.”

And, you’d be right.

However, before you judge these gals silly for the naïveté of their talking points, I’d caution you to be aware that this is a common trap people fall into in societies that abandon educating their youths on life history... and men fall into it every bit as much as women.